We Are Coming Soon

We’re excited to be getting back to in-person events
Who: This is open to all aged 11-18.
Where: The Thurso Centre, within the beautiful 32 acre grounds of Felden Lodge, Hemel Hempstead, HP3 0BL.
When: 14th to 16th July 2023
Overnighters, arrive from 5 p.m. Friday 14th July for a welcome and buffet dinner at 6 p.m., pick up 5 p.m. Sunday.
Those with Daytime tickets are asked to arrive by 9.15 a.m. for a 9.30 a.m. start, but you are welcome to join us for breakfast which is 8.30 a.m. each day. You can join us on Friday evening, or just for Saturday and Sunday. Please be picked up by 9 p.m. latest each evening – you can stay for dinner and the evening activities, or head off before dinner if you think someone else’s cooking will be better than ours.

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You’ll probably find you want to stay for the meals as they’re sociable and the food is good.

How much:
£249 for full residential tickets (bedding is provided).
£225 for earlybird tickets purchased in full by the 31st May.
£150 for day tickets (all activities and meals, but staying elsewhere with family)

In all cases, a £50 deposit secures your place, balance due by 30th June 2023.

Where you’ll be sleeping:
You’ll be sleeping in rooms that have between 2 and 6 beds with those of the same gender and roughly same age. Non-binary people let us know what you’re comfortable with. The venue provide pillows, duvets etc. and covers. If you know someone else who is coming and you’d particularly like to share a room with them, let us know and we’ll do our best to make the jigsaw work.

What we’re doing:
Each morning and afternoon, there will be a choice of main activities, four in total over the weekend. We’ll ask you to pick six out of this list of nine, ranking your choices, and then we’ll do a complicated jigsaw of people’s choices to please as many people as much as possible – for example, putting people of similar ages together. You make your choices on the same online form we use to gather contact, dietary info etc. In the evenings we’ll be doing other stuff either together or with choices you can make on the day.

Here are the provisional session choices for July

The £1,189,000,000,000 Question
The UK government will spend almost £1.2 trillion this year. By the time you have read this description. Understand where it comes from and where it goes and see what ideas you have for plugging the £132 billion gap between the taxes gathered in and the spending going out. This course is a mix of political philosophy and the detail of how politics and the economy are managed in the UK in 2023. Find out where you sit on the political map and see where in the world matches your worldview, and then see what you would do differently if you were in Number 10. By the time you’ve read this far, the UK has borrowed another £80,000!

Stage Combat
Ever wondered how stage actors can take a punch without having to suffer for their art? In this course, you’ll learn the stagecraft of punches, slaps, hairpulls, stabs and swordfights, all skilfully done to create the impression of fights without any actual blood being spilled.

Amble, Ramble, Bramble
When you walk around a city, you recognise hundreds of the ebrands you see around you, and you can use Google Maps to get around. But when you walk through the countryside, how many of the trees and plants do you know, and could you find your way along footpaths and across country without roads to help? This course which will take you offsite for a morning or afternoon is about getting handy with map and compass as you learn to navigate, and to identify and appreciate some of the plants and trees you pass on the way. You’ll need walking boots and waterproofs for this one.

Get Knotted
The Ashley Book of Knots has 3800 useful knots. You’ll not have time to knot all those, but you’ll learn some useful ones, some unusual ones, some beautiful ones and some that will come in handy if you need to hitch up a horse ready for a quick getaway, haul a log, sail a ship or restrain an unconscious criminal before they awake. You’ll also try to work out what makes a knot and knot, and how some apparent knots are not what they seem. 

D&D 
A fantasy role-playing micro-adventure to enjoy face-to-face with an expert Dungeon Master (DM) – a different one to our April Weekender. Bring a character you've already created for our online classes or be someone new. If you've not D&D'd before, you'll have a chance to check in with our DM before the session to talk you through the basics so you are ready for the adventure!

GR8 TXT STORIES
From the earliest days of the novel, writers have crafted stories that are told by letters going back and forth. At the same time as feeling you’re having the story told by the words of the characters themselves, you can never be sure that what they’re writing is the honest truth. We’ll take this format and bring it up to date by having our characters correspond by text message.

Rantastic
"Anger's a good thing. It tells you who you are" From the speeches of ancient Greece to resent-day comedians and columnists, words with passion and wit have been used to attack the powerful, challenge prejudices (or express them) and stir the public to action. In this course you'll explore the art of the polemic - speech in attack mode - and construct your own rantastic rants about your pet peeves and favourite causes.

Art to Go
When we think of artists, we think of galleries, canvases and exhibitions. But most artists make their living producing branding, logos, infographics, designs for businesses that need to illustrate, explain and sell. In this course, you’ll see how graphic artists go from a client’s brief through ideas and drafts to the finished article. Then you’ll have the chance to be both client and artist, commissioning another artist to produce something, and also using your
creative skills to “meet the brief” for someone else. This course is as much about coming up with ideas as it is about putting pencil to paper.

Mediaeval Sports

When we think of life in the Middle Ages, we imagine stinky peasants toiling in fields, unless you’re lucky enough to be one of the rich or the clergy. But there was time for leisure too, on Sundays, many holidays and when the harvest was in. Archery was compulsory for men, and there were other sports designed to keep people fit for war, or just for fun. In this course you’ll try out your archery skills and have a go at other mediaeval sports such as
“colf” – but first you’ll have to reinvent the rules…